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Ireland
History The election of 1944 ends the dominance of Fianna Fail and brings to power a coalition led by Fine Gael and supported by the National Labour Party, the Monetary Reform Party and Ailtiri na hAiseirghe. The coalition sought friendly terms with both the Axis and with Great Britain, with the aim of restoring a united Ireland. The government was briefly headed by Eoin O'Duffy, who soon retired due to ill health, and then by John Costello and Richard Mulcahy. The influence of Mulcahy in particular proved divisive, with various groups refusing to take part in government with him. This period of civil discord, along with the war-time Emergency, led to the dissolution of several parties, including the official Labour Party and even Fianna Fail. Under the premiership of the young pro-German firebrand Oliver J. Flanagan, Ireland was declared a Christian State. As Interior Minister, Flanagan had been responsible for the expulsion of Ireland's small Jewish community of some 4,000 individuals. Ireland was one of the last country's to join in the 'solution to the Jewish Question in Europe'. The replacement as British premier of Imperial die-hard Winston Churchill by Oswald Mosley in 1957 led to the reunification of all Ireland as a Dominion within the British Empire. This compromise included guarantees of effective Irish sovereignty and of protection for the newly created large Protestant minority in the north. These guarantees were not regarded as sufficient by many Protestants, who fled, either to Great Britain or elsewhere, or who resisted reunification with armed force or protests. Another young pro-German firebrand, the Reverend Ian Paisley, led some 15,000 of his followers in the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster into exile in the German Generalgouvernment (the former Poland). At the time, the Generalgouvernment was desperate for Aryan settlers to supplement the Germanisation efforts in the region. With the full integration of the former Poland into Germany in 1965, Paisley returned to Ireland to organise the defence of his Protestant countrymen. Protestants were especially concerned by moves by the Dublin government to offer the Crown of Ireland to a German Catholic Prince, Karl Anton of Hohenzollern-Emden, in apparent violation of the Mosley-Flanagan agreements. By 1967 the establishment of rival militias organised along religious lines was making the north of Ireland ungovernable. The refusal of Mosley to intervene, which would also have violated the agreement on Irish sovereignty, as well as his mishandling of Great Britain's economic woes and other factors, led to his forced resignation. The interim military government which replaced him quickly moved to re-occupy the six counties of Ulster. The civilian government installed in 1968 confirmed the legality of this occupation under the Mosley-Flanagan agreements. Within the occupied north, power was jointly held by the British armed forces and the local Protestant militias. The Dublin government was unable to act directly against the overwhelming power of the British Empire, however it did resume its old tactic of supporting local pro-Dublin militias with financing, material and men. Pro-Dublin militias also enjoyed the support of volunteers from abroad, mainly from Croatia but also from many Iberian Bloc nations and other Catholic countries.